According to one of the techniques known up to now, such a coating is formed by reactive cathode sputtering, also known as "reactive sputtering". Such a process especially presents the disadvantage of a comparatively low deposition speed, resulting from the contamination of the used targets from which the pulverisation is achieved.
Another known technique is the activated evaporation in a vacuum, called ARE (Activated Reactive Evaporation). This technique also has to cope with a problem of contamination of the evaporation system, which considerably reduces the efficiency of the depositing.